An IT Project Success Story

Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn has created a successful project portfolio. ...

... "With support from the Information Technology Project, created through an initiative by the Princess, Toyeeba got a new perspective on life. " ...

Via Bangkok's Independent Newspaper: Princess of Information Technology

Alignment and Transparency Key to Info Tech Success

Marketing success stories, open dialogue about IT opportunities, and investment portfolio management techniques are some of the ways to raise the profile of the information technology organization to business leaders in the organization. ...

... "As a result of all these factors, senior executives at most companies have little desire to deal with IT and its role in their business and relegate this function to the CIO. In addition, many CEOs find the financial and business returns on their IT investments obscure and difficult to quantify ... " ...

Via Wall Street Journal: Hidden Potential of IT

IT Investment in the Crunch

Financial firm is expected to increase its IT investment during the contraction in the credit market, which is a contrarian strategy. ...

... "The impact of the credit crunch on HSBC's accounts is unlikely to have a knock-on effect in the group's IT strategy ... " ...

Via UK Computing: HSBC

Project Investments During Economic Uncertainty or Contraction

Here's some tips regarding investments during uncertain economic times. This quote makes sense in that ... there's quite a bit of effort necessary to adopt and sustain a new performance level after an IT project go-live. This period of stabilization, adoptions, and maturity is a worthwhile investment after the initial capital investment is made. ...

... "Real, long-term value comes from recognizing at the outset that growth, evolution and value-generation require sustained sponsorship, attention, maintenance and marketing. " ...

Via B-Eye: Smart Investment

Grow Ideas into Projects

Create a project incubator. Sprinkle some funding on your seeds and see which ones grow. Prune your plants. And, water your best prospects to grow the strongest trees. Read on for tips on incubating ideas into projects. ...

... "Pruning the project incubator is an especially important aspect of developing ideas. Ideas change over time, and some even turn out to be duds. " ...

Via LifeDev: Grow Your Ideas

Portfolio of One

How would you like to explain your portfolio balance for the next three years with a $1B must-do technology investment? ...

... "FEMA's enterprise IT project is a multiyear program expected to cost at least $1 billion, according to Input Inc. " ...

Via Washington Tech: $1B overhaul

Portfolio Management: Lessons from the Super Bowl, Continued

If you are going to make investments from the high risk, high return segment of your portfolio, you better have the stomach for it. ...

CIO Role Shifts Reporting Relationships

To keep IT relevant and better connected to the overall business strategy, shouldn't the CIO report to the CEO? The data supports a different trend. As CIOs have aligned more investments with the business, has their influence dimished? Or, is reporting relationship irrelevant in the grand scheme of things? No doubt about it ... the sand keeps shifting ...

... "The increasing prominence of the CFO in IT management signals a change in the way companies view technology strategy and deployment. " ...

Via CIO Insight: Meet Your New Boss

Project Transparency and Oversight

High-risk government IT projects are on the rise as federal project managers share the facts on their projects. This is a good thing as there's significant investment at risk. ...

... "OMB attributed the increase to better oversight of the projects and better reporting. " ...

Via FederalTimes: Project Management

IT Portfolio Management

Meta Group insights on managing IT investments as a portfolio to maximize returns while balancing risk. ...

Business Intelligence Business Case

A business intelligence project proposal can be challenging. Can't calculate a positive NPV or ROI? Don't despair. However, you can link the investment to reducing the cycle time of your current management reporting process ... or, you can identify the incremental value of making certain decisions that you cannot make today. Often, though, BI investments are seen as strategic. ...

... "The survey found that measuring the ROI for BI investment is more challenging that for other IT projects. The overall objective of BI is to improve company performance by putting the right information into the right hands at the right time. " ...

Via TMCnet: BI ROI

The Innovation Investment

Innovation is not free. Research projects need funding. And, it costs money for the salaries of innovation evangelists. Fresh from PDMA event, Jeffrey offers insights on the diminishing returns of operational efficiency and the need to innovate in order to grow. ...

... "Without defining an objective and consistently reinforcing the efforts of a group of people who support and enable an innovation process, most firms simply won't generate a lot of new ideas. " ...

Via Innovate on Purpose: Cheap Innovation

Innovation: Influence of Relationships Survey

Survey delves into influence of relationships on innovation process. ...

... "Some data suggests that the quality of the relationships with decision-makers in a given organization may influence whether ideas are advanced (e.g., funded for the first time). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether this is indeed the case. " ...

Via Univ of Penn Wharton School: Survey on Idea Advancement for Knowledge